The crowd at a Yates basketball game isn’t the early-to-leave type, at least not until the Lions are leading by an insurmountable margin.

But when Findlay College Prep guard Nick Johnson rose up, reached high over the rim and threw down a one-handed tomahawk jam to put an exclamation point on the Lions’ first loss in almost two years, the crowd had seen enough. The mass exodus from Texas Southern University’s Health and Physical Education Arena began and the sun set on an incredible winning streak.

In front of an eager but anxious crowd and a national television audience, the Yates Lions saw their 66-game winning streak come to an end Thursday night with a 95-69 loss to Findlay College Prep.

It is the first loss for the two-time defending Class 4A state champion Lions (8-1) since Dec. 20, 2008 when they fell to Elsik 78-76 in the Houston ISD Tournament.

Findlay College Prep (15-1), a national high school basketball powerhouse program from Henderson, Nev., came in with the talent, speed and skill to test Yates. The Pilots, who won the mythical national championship in 2008-09 and won the ESPN RISE National High School Invitational each of the last two years, featured a roster that included three Division I signees and several underclassmen who are Division I prospects.

With that kind of talent, Findlay was able to do many things that most Lions opponents don’t — take care of the ball, shoot well and keep the Lions under 100 points.

Yates, which is still acclimating 12 new faces with just four holdovers from its 2009-10 mythical national championship team, had trouble executing coach Greg Wise’s signature trapping, pressure defense.

“You could tell (on several occasions) that somebody was in the wrong spot,” Wise said. “When that happens with any (team) they’re going to be able to finish (and score points).”

Yates didn’t shoot the ball well, either. After leading 27-22 at the end of the first quarter, the Lions struggled to find the basket in large stretches. For the night, Yates shot 35.7 percent (25-for-70) while the Pilots shot a scorching 71.4 percent (35-for-49).

“They got back into that groove and got their confidence back up,” Yates guard Clyde Santee said. “That hurt us. They didn’t turn the ball over a lot and they had a great point guard leading their team.”

From the game’s opening tip, it became clear that the Lions would have their hands full. Kabongo (18 points, eight rebounds, five assists) found Johnson (24 points, five rebounds) for an alley-oop dunk for a 2-0 lead and Kabongo turned to the visiting crowd and pounded his chest while Johnson let out a smile.

“Me and Mike wanted to come out and get the crowd … shut them up kind of,” Johnson said. “We called that before the game, before we came out, and it worked to perfection.”

Findlay Prep went on a 20-6 lead in the first 3:43 of the second quarter to take a 42-33 lead. The Lions would never regain the lead after that point.

The Lions will now go back to the drawing board today as the 71st annual Houston ISD Tournament begins. The Lions, who are the top seed in the tournament, have a first-round bye and will return to the court at noon on Saturday against either Kashmere or St. John’s at Barnett Fieldhouse.

The team is still focused on its primary goal which they know is still attainable — a third consecutive state championship.

“It’s tough, but we just have to keep our head up because we have a tournament coming up,” Santee said. “This winning streak was amazing....We still have a very good chance at winning a state championship this year.”